Mohawk lockdown ends as police continue to hunt shooters

A 20-year-old man is in hospital in serious condition after a shooting on 
Hamilton Mountain, just a couple of blocks from Mohawk College.

The incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and led to an one-hour 
lockdown at the college, which meant doors were locked and no one was allowed 
into the West 5th Street and Fennell Avenue school. 
Students at the facility were encouraged to remain indoors, but students said 
security guards stood by the doors preventing anyone from leaving.

“I am really ... shaken up,” said student Michael Fortier.

Hamilton Police Superintendent Ken Bond said detectives are looking for two 
suspects who are believed to have left the scene in a car, but they were still 
working on descriptions Tuesday night.

The shooting occurred in a house that a longtime neighbour said was lived in 
by students. It is about midway on the block, between Fennell Avenue West and 
Monarch Road. Bond said the shooting was witnesses by a couple of people inside 
the dwelling.

The neighbour, who did not want to be identified, said he did not know the 
students, but noted the home had been the scene, on occasion, of “some wild 
parties.”

The man said he and his wife were watching TV and did not hear anything 
untoward at the nearby home. They first became aware of it when a policeman 
knocked on their door at about 6:30 p.m., asked if they had heard anything and 
told them a person had been shot. They looked outside soon after and found half 
a dozen police cars on the street.

He said it’s the first time for such an incident on the street since his 
family moved there in the mid-1980s. He said the street in the last decade has 
changed a bit, with about half a dozen single family homes being converted into 
student housing.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “You never know